City urged to improve response to evacuees

A petition in Brandon signed by more than 300 people is asking the city to better prepare and handle an influx of evacuees in the future.

Three hundred and thirty-eight people from the neighbourhoods around the Victoria Inn and Clarion Hotel & Suites signed the online petition late last month and early this month.

The petition has since been delivered to city council.

“A few of us thought that it would be good to put something formally in, like a petition asking for enforcement of the bylaws to counteract some of the bad behaviours and things we were seeing last year,” petition organizer Tara Stokes said. “It was a really tough summer for us.”

The petition pointed to behaviour from some evacuees during the 2025 wildfire season, in which more than 1,400 people were evacuated to the Wheat City from their homes, mostly in northern Manitoba.

Stokes, who lives in the Larkhill neighbourhood, said parts of last summer had some of the worst behaviour she and her neighbours have seen. She said the length of time evacuees were in the city and the number of people who were here were probably the reasons things seemed worse than previous years.

“We were seeing like fireworks being lit off and hitting people’s houses, and we saw drugs and guns and prostitution … and always like drinking, like public urination, like there was just very bad behaviours going on there,” she said.

She is calling on the city to increase supports for evacuees, which could be more activities for people to do instead of staying in a hotel the entire time.

The First Nation Safety Officers who were in the city last year were a major positive, she said.

The FNSOs, who were placed in Brandon to act as a friendly face for evacuees and support them, while reducing calls for service for local police, have been hailed as a major positive by the city, the Brandon Police Service and First Nations leaders.

Stokes said most of the issues she saw were during the times the FNSOs weren’t present in the city. The safety officers at one point were pulled from Brandon to help in their home communities.

Last year, BPS Chief Tyler Bates said the time the safety officers were gone was noticed by his officers and residents.

“That absence was felt within the city of Brandon, not just by our service, but by the neighbourhoods and the citizens that noticed a significant spike in disturbances and disruptions of their peace and security,” he said in September.

Stokes said the safety officer presence is something her neighbours would like to see again in the future.

She and other organizers were touched by how many people signed the petition and how quickly it happened, she said. The online petition shows that 331 of the signatures were signed in the first three days of it going public.

“I think (it) speaks to other people feeling the same way, that we need to have a little bit more support for our community and a little bit more protection and enforcement of things, so I hope it makes a difference,” she said.

One of the councillors for the area, Shaun Cameron, said there are some strategies the city needs to work on, and that the provincial government needs to be involved to help make things safer for Brandonites and the evacuees themselves.

A lot of the issues arose due to evacuees being confined to hotels, said Cameron, whose Ward 4 covers the Clarion and the neighbourhood east of 34th Street. Creating more opportunities for people to feel welcome is “incredibly important.”

“Any sort of petition that garners that sort of feedback is something that should really open the eyes of the province, should open the eyes of the city to know that there’s improvements and there’s areas to improve upon,” he said.

Those discussions, which could include the province and Red Cross, might involve what hoteliers can offer to support the people forced from their homes for an extended period.

“I think it’s an important discussion that all parties should be a part of, including the evacuee communities themselves,” he said.

Bates in a statement said BPS has received the petition and that the priority remains on the safety of visitors and residents alike.

“The BPS policing response will be continually assessed responsive to our operational needs. This is a collaborative response inclusive of the Emergency Management Office and all relevant Provincial policing partners,” Bates said.

“The compassion and hospitality of our citizens to those in crisis is a testament to the character of our city.”

Coun. Barry Cullen, whose Ward 3 covers the Victoria Inn and the neighbourhood west of 34th Street, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Sun also reached out to the city, which deferred comment to BPS.

» alambert@brandonsun.com